silence the wolf and the lambs won't cry
by louisaeve
Summary: she could of stopped all of this and yet people rarely like seeing a woman on top


**silence the wolf and the lambs won't cry**

louisaeve

* * *

Sometimes she felt like she was yelling, yelling,_ yelling_.

Screaming to be heard, screaming for her voice to raise above others. She wants to tell the world that she's important, that she's a person too, and she has feelings and thoughts and ideas and _she can talk for herself_. What Lily most definitely does not need is a bunch of fat old men to sit around in court and decide what she needs to do with her life and how she needs to live it and exactly what she needs to do. Which is why she applies.

The Tobias Jennings Grant is a grant for an excellent and skilled potioneer.

Lily knows she's good. She's better than anyone in her year even - no she won't say it, won't open the scab. She makes potions all the time. Beauty potions and potions to help with cramps almost weekly, but she also makes potions that are well out of the average sixth years reach. She makes potions for luck and potions for hope. She can make potions that can burn holes from a mans face to toes in _minutes_. Granted, some of it isn't exactly the most legal, but the Potions Professor loves her, so he's not the one to try and tell her not to.

Unfortunately not only are potioneers elitist but they are also a male dominated group. So she has to beat all the pureblood males trying out.

It's not going to happen, she knows, oh how she **knows**.

Some other guy is going to win, with slicked back hair and robes imported from France but she'll be damned if she doesn't deserve it. So she will try out and she will enter her potion and when it doesn't win (oh it won't, it won't, it won't) she will write articles on this potion and enter it to international competitions and magazines and the sort.

And so she gets the entry papers and she write her name with a flourish while she brainstorms her idea for her potion and thinks about all the people this could help, thinks about the erasing of blood purity this will bring. Because they can't ignore evidence can they?

Of course, people laugh. Slughorn when she tells him. "My dear girl, blood types can't be measured!'

Stupid, stupid, **stupid**_**.**_ Lily wants to tell them that of course they can, that muggles have been doing it for years and that it actually helps heal people but she'd insult him, and she knows that if she wants to get anywhere in this world she's gonna have to bit her tongue and butter up to old, fat, _stupid_, men in the future. So she bites her tongue as he suggests she simply try and _tweak_ an already invented potion, try a Polyjuice, or a Luck he says.

Of course, she nods her head. I'll look into that immediately.

He doesn't stop to think that the most Slytherin move of all is to simply not be Slytherin.

* * *

"What're you doing?" James Potter glides into a seat next to her, and although she'd normally be annoyed that anyone had the nerve to interrupt her, she's _tired_ and **excited** and _**nervous**_ all at the same time and she needs someone to talk to. So she grins at the boy next to her (and even James is taken aback at that action) and opens the book she's been keeping her records in.

"I'm working on a potion for the Tobias Jennings Grant," she pulls out the entry form, and points it out to him, having herself always being someone who learnt through sight and touch.

"That's that -" James starts, his face taking on a look of recognition.

"The grant which is started by an elite group of Potioneers over 200 years ago, with three entries being granted and given recognition every year, and over fifty applicants for the grant each of it's entries has come many amazing potions however all were one by pureblood males, _with the exception_ of Jacinta Burswood in 1954, who went on to create potions with her husband and one Brian Mills, who was a halfblooded. With a pureblood, high society mother and a muggle born father who was related to three ruling families, but a half blood nonetheless," Lily smiled. "And I'm entering."

"Lily," James is frowning.

"Oh I know I won't win," she gives a laugh. "But I'll enter anyway and then when they tell me they're sorry that I didn't one on some generic letter - if they even bother - I'll send it off to France and Switzerland and heck maybe even try New Zealand. And I'll make them realise how wrong they were."

"That's very . . . " James trails off, as his fingers trace the carefully inked words she printed onto the pale parchment she ordered especially for the project.

"Vengeful? Manipulative?" Lily laughs. "I'll humiliate them. But I am willing to give them a chance."

And her eyes are full of angry tears, and her lips curl into a smile that's hungry for blood.

"Amazing," James' eyebrows are drawn together as his pointer finger traces the pressed leaf of one of the many ingredients she's been using. "What exactly does this potion do?"

Lily's face gains a smile that isn't hungry for anything but praise and recognition and knowledge. "Wizards have researched many times that magic lies in the blood. It's proven that if you perform the right spells, you can see if someone possesses magic, simply through the traces in the blood. Therefore, I simply want to see if you can _measure_ precisely how **much** magic is in someone. That way you can see how much magic a person can take, how much magic, if any, Muggles actually possess, how much squibs possess -"

"And if muggleborns and purebloods actually have a difference magically," James realises with a loud exhale. "What happens if it backfires? What happens if they muggleborns actually contain less magic?"

"Then I'll deal with it," Lily laughs. "But they won't."

"How can you be sure?" James asks again and Lily is a little annoyed because yeah they might sound like valid questions but right now they're just **annoying** and she appreciates the effort to help or whatever but honestly does he think that she hasn't done any _research_?

So she stands up and hands him the articles about magic in pure-blooded families and squibs and the increasing amount of purebloods turning out to have limited or no magical ability (the only place she could find those were in some magazines that may not exactly be reputable to the purebloods because they're run by muggleborns but they're informative as anything and no way in hell is she wrong about this.

"This is going to piss a lot of people off," James looks up at her and Lily grins as she pulls her stuff together and gets ready.

"Good."

* * *

She's managed to figure out the basics. She needs a clear potion of some sort, which is why she decided on using unicorn hairs, which she'll have to order in. And they're not cheap too, so she's going to be taking up a full time job these holidays. She needs money and so she needs a job.

As it is she's already pulling every string she has, getting Slughorn to order in a bunch of herbs and plants from Africa ('I was just going to see if the use of different herbs could change anything about a Poly') and Marlene's rolling her eyes but she's managed to get milk of a selkie from her dad and Ainee's owling her sister to see if her husband will mind her spending money on potions ingredients for a project that are not necessarily easy to obtain.

And Lily thinks that half of this is just the world tormenting her. Because maybe part of the reason barely anyone whose not pureblooded and male goes far in potions is because half of the problem is obtaining the ingredients (she's owlet all sorts of places and fire called as well, and is she wants something above what a seventh year student needs for class, most of the time she's been asked if her husband or father is the one needing these and if so, could they please contact her).

And it's kind of frustrating because she's always thought herself independent and now she's being old she has to depend on everyone around her everyone she knows simply to make one **potion**_**. **_

So by the time spring rolls around she's kind of a mess, and she can't even get the ingredients for her potion so how is she supposed to _make_ the thing?

* * *

Just before summer, she makes a breakthrough.

She's sitting in the library, frantically searching through one of the books she got Slughorn to sign out of the Restricted Section for her. The author is another pureblooded jerk, with something way too far up his arse to be considered just prejudiced. He's self righteous, but he knows potions, and Lily can stumble through his life's work of elitism if it means getting to her goal.

And then James potter sits down next to her.

"What are you doing here?" She gives a laugh. "Aren't you like allergic to the smell of books or something?"

"I'm allergic to dust," he shrugs, trying to be casual, and Lily gives a little laugh at that. "You still working on your potion?"

"Yeah," she sighs, and pulls her hair out and into a bun. "It's just I've got this one herb and it's not working. Rosemary right? It's a stabiliser when ground, and so it should work, but it's not reacting well, and I just . . . people say I need this one herb, from Monte Carlo, that reacts well with the fibres of the unicorn hair, but it's like really expensive. . . . " Lily trials off and pulls at her hair, letting out a small growl of frustration.

"Can you . . . go back to the basics?" James is no potioneer, but he is planning on taking the seventh year class and he got an E on his O.W.L.'s.

"What?" Lily frowns. "Like basic basics? As in like . . . the freaking basic bases, which generally are not acidic and are firm stabilisers?" She's grinning now and Madam Pince shoots them a stern glare and yet Lily hasn't the time to care and she's already scribbling away, working furiously. "Yes, that could _work_."

And in the spur of the moment she presses a kiss to his cheek and grins. "You're and angel," she pets his cheek and he knows that she doesn't mean it _literally_, doesn't even really mean it at **all**, but still, red paints his cheekbones, and his blood burns from inside and rushes to his ears and so he ducks his head and mumbles some excuse about letting her get to her work, because no way in hell is he losing what (friendship? is it friendship?) they have.

And so Lily stares at his back, slightly confused, before turning back to her work and realising she has like so little left until she can start getting to to the actual brewing.

* * *

Of course as luck would have it, by the time she perfects her recipe, exams are just about rolling around and then summer comes, and she's working in some lousy diner, earning minimum wage and having fat dripped upon her.

And then Marlene's a wreck because as always something has to go wrong in the sweetest person Lily knows life, and her parents were murdered and she goes and sits in her bedroom with her and holds her hand and kisses her forehead and calls her love and makes her coffee and tea and scones and caramel slice andLily quits her job and ends up spending her summer taking care of one of her best friends.

So by the time Hogwarts reopens she's got barely enough to by unicorn hair and not much else for the saffron she wanted (the saffron she needs).

* * *

Slughorn isn't the only teacher that takes an interest in Lily's project of course. One day Lily's in one of the potions labs, tweaking with the unicorn hair when Professor McGonagall arrives, ducking to enter through the doorway.

"I heard about this little . . . project," she sniffs and Lily flushes. "What exactly is the aim?"

"It's . . . a potion to produce the calculation of a persons magic," Lily explains, stopping from bundling the unicorn hair.

"And the aim of this is to prove that . . . muggleborns are equal to purebloods? Perhaps even better?" Professor McGonagall raises an eyebrow.

"That might of been . . . part of the motivation behind it," Lily admits with a wince as Professor McGonagall examines the vials she has laid out on the desk next to her cauldron.

"You're trying to show a very _large_ and **powerful** group of blood purists that blood doesn't matter?" Professor McGonagall asks, and Lily flushes a deeper red. "That's very stupid. And . . . brave," and the twitching of her lips almost looks like a smile, as she sweeps out of the room.

The next day she finds a letter in the seventh year girls dormitory, announcing she is the recipient of the Hogwarts Independent Research Plan. it's only 50 galleons, which isn't a lot as far as potions goes, but it's enough to buy saffron and put a couple of galleons away for her next ingredients.

* * *

On top of her entry (due in three months, and she's still only made the potion once - which was a near complete failure), and her preparation for N.E.W.T.'s, she's Head Girl.

James Potter got the position as Head Boy in a turn of events, and that's what she's thinking about one night as they're going over the House points and then he looks up at her like she's crazy.

"What're you thinking about?" James gives a slight laugh, flushing a bit under gaze (because for all that he was cocky and arrogant and self-assured, he was also vulnerable and shy and self conscious at times).

"Just about . . . how surprising it is that you got Head Boy," Lily lets the corner of her moth quirk up.

"What you thought it'd be Remus?" And James curses himself as his cheeks heat up.

"No," Lily shakes her head, and leans back on the chair she's sitting on. They've spread themselves out in the Head office, with papers all over the desks. "i knew it wouldn't be."

"So is it a good surprising . . . or a bad?" James trails off, trying to be mysterious and joking, as a smirk arrives on his lips, but his palms are moist and his neck is heating up.

"I'm still trying to figure out," Lily smiles, and stands up, and her palms are wetting also and as she makes her way over to him, her knees very nearly start knocking land only with a mass amount of strength does she manage to stops them from clicking together and producing a sound.

"Yeah?" He sounds breathless as he looks up at her and is flushed and then with courage that even Lily didn't know she had, she swoops down and plants her lips on his.

James and Lily both immediately feel their cheeks flush, and cautiously (Lily inwardly scoffs at that what does he have to be cautious of? She was the one that bloody **kissed **him!) places a hand on her waist and she pulls his head closer with a hand around his neck.

It's not perfect. It's most certainly _not_ perfect by any means. Her slightly crooked teeth bump his spell corrected and the position they're in is most certainly not perfect, because she's angled up and trying to sit on him but it doesn't really work because of height differences and all of that.

But it's kind of perfect in a first kiss waiting to happen way, which means not at all. And it's broken and wholesome and aching and soothing and cursed and destined all at once.

* * *

She doesn't get the Grant. Of course she doesn't and she knew it was coming and heck Lily expected it. But it still fucking **hurts** and it _burns _and it aches, but she leaves it well alone.

James gives her a sad smile and she doesn't smile in return, doesn't do anything other than give a twist of her lips before she's off writing letters and articles and proving that her potion works and that it is valid.

Later when she looks back, all she thinks is, _this could of stopped._

But like always, people who have power, will only give power to those like them. They will silence the rest, stop all hope from entering the world and fuel their own wicked schemes.

* * *

thoughts lovelies? my prose is all over the place recently


End file.
